You can’t destroy a country unless you have the total power to do so. In America, the Constitution gives the people the right to rise up and throw off their shackles every two years. At least, as long as we have a Constitution, and as long as judicial activists can’t interpret that Constitution any damn way they want to.

So Democrats have to cheat to get their “fundamental transformation.” And cheat they do.

“My opponent, John Adler, represents everything that is wrong with politics in our country today,” Republican Jon Runyan said. “I would ask for an apology. But frankly, an apology from someone like Congressman Adler would be so meaningless that it’s not worth seeking.”

He spoke at a news conference as Adler, a first-term Democratic lawmaker, and his campaign remained mum about a report in the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill in which Democratic operatives speaking on the condition of anonymity confirmed what Republicans have believed for months: That tea-party candidate Peter DeStefano was put on the ballot by Democrats.

The operatives said a county Democratic employee is running at least the Web elements of DeStefano’s campaign.

Tea party organizations, which have denounced DeStefano since he entered the race in June, called on him Friday to quit. About 50 tea party activists gathered in protest outside a restaurant in Medford where DeStefano had scheduled a fundraiser Friday night.

DeStefano arrived at the fundraiser after the protesters left and told reporters he would remain in the race, but he would not answer specific questions about the newspaper’s report, dismissing the allegations as “hearsay.”

“I’m an average guy who’s running for Congress on the independent ticket,” DeStefano said.

One tea party group, the West Jersey Tea Party, said it plans to file a voter-fraud lawsuit against Adler next week.

Adler has previously denied the accusations. Adler and top officials in Adler’s campaign and did not return calls or e-mails from The Associated Press on Friday.

In an August interview with the AP, DeStefano excoriated both Adler and Runyan.

He fended off questions about Republicans’ accusations and tea party organizations’ claims that he wasn’t even a member, though he was running for Congress with the slogan “New Jersey Tea Party.” While there are several tea party groups in New Jersey, none goes by that name. Some tea party groups are supporting Runyan.

“Any American citizen can run for any office they want,” DeStefano said. “I think it’s time we get past this crap.”

He refused to answer questions about precisely when he decided to run.

In August, Adler told the Courier-Post: “I know we weren’t part of it.”

Runyan said his campaign was looking into whether there’s any legal action that could be taken against Adler.

The operatives told the Courier-Post that the plan was shared with members of the South Jersey Young Democrats, and some in that group gathered signatures for DeStefano – while others didn’t because they thought the plan was unethical.

Republicans started raising suspicions about DeStefano months ago when they found many of the signatures on his nominating petitions were from Democrats, including a former Adler campaign staffer.

In that article, I cited the audio of Democrat Robin Carnahan openly mocking the election process and the will of the voters in an exchange that went as follows:

Carnahan: “We’re going to also have a libertarian and a Constitution Party candidate running. And I will tell you no one’s going to know who they are, but it’s not going to matter, because Glenn Beck says you’re supposed to be for the Constitution, and there is some percentage of people who will go vote for them. And in our internal polling about six or seven percent goes like that to the Libertarian and Constitution Party. So I’m quite sure that whoever wins is going to do it with less than fifty percent of the vote.” […]

Donor: “You just don’t sound like those Constitution Party votes are going to come out of your account.”

Carnahan: “What do you think?” (Audience laughter)

Donor: “I think you’re right.” (Audience laughter)

These Democrats don’t care about fairly and honestly winning elections; they care only about power and totalitarian control over government. And they will use every UNFAIR and DISHONEST tactic to gain the power over the people that they seek.

And if you care about your country’s Constitution, why, you’re just an idiot schmuck to these contemptible Democrats.

Couric asked about McCain’s answer when Politico inquired about the number of homes he and his wife, Cindy, own. McCain referred the question to his staff, who said he had at least four. Records show the number could be twice that, depending on how you count the family’s properties.

“I am grateful for the fact that I have a wonderful life,” McCain said. “I spent some years without a kitchen table, without a chair, and I know what it’s like to be blessed by the opportunities of this great nation. Cindy’s father, who barely finished high school, went off and distinguished himself in World War II in a B-17 and came back with practically nothing and realized the American dream, and I am proud and grateful for that, and I think he is a role model to many young Americans who serve in the military and come back and succeed.

“So the fact is that we have homes, and I’m grateful for it. We spend our time primarily in Washington, D.C., where I have a condominium in Crystal City, [Va.]; here in this beautiful Sedona that I am blessed every moment that I can spend here; our condominium in Phoenix, Ariz.; and a place over in San Diego. The others are also for investment purposes.”

McCain was asked if an Obama ad mentioning his memory was implicitly an attack on his advancing age.

“I don’t know, Katie. I’ll leave that to others,” he said. “We tried to inject some humor in some of ours, which I think were quite effective and entertaining for people. But that’s a judgment the American people will make.”

Finally, Couric asked if he was sorry he had answered the question about houses the way he did.

“I’ll continue to say I am blessed and very proud that [his late father-in-law] Jim Hensley, a war hero, a man who barely graduated from high school, was able to pass on to his daughter what he struggled for and saved for. That’s the ambition that all of us have for our children and grandchildren. If someone wants to disparage that, they are free to do that.”

It’s interesting to go back to the last sentence of the first paragraph (“Records show the number could be twice that, depending on how you count the family’s properties”) and then examine Katie Couric’s last question. It would seem to me that, if dozens of journalists scouring the record are still unable to say for certain precisely how many homes the McCains (actually Cindy McCain) own, then you can understand why John McCain had a little difficulty coming up with a politically appropriate and factually correct answer in a “gotcha” moment.

But the Obama campaign has been treating this as THE central campaign issue. I suppose we’re supposed to believe 1) that wealth is demonic; 2) that Cindy McCain is demonic because she is wealthy; 3) that John McCain is demonic by proxy for having married wealthy heiress Cindy McCain; that John McCain should have busied himself with a detailed study of his wife’s financial situation, even though finances are evil; that therefore John McCain should be excoriated for not knowing exactly how many houses his demonic wife has when even the media have to use the word “could” to describe the number.

What occurred to me is just how differently McCain handled an attack from the way Barack Obama has handled attacks.

Obama has a huge network of bloggers in every state who have devoted their pathetic existences to attacking every negative claim about their messiah as part of “truth squads” (although that title hearkens me back to “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is strength” from 1984). Obama’s campaign responds with instantaneous counterattacking television ads. And he rails about what McCain (or fill in the blank conservative) said in his teleprompter-reading town hall meetings in what amount to preaching to the choir.

But I’m not seeing Barack Obama going into enemy media territory and doing interviews to face the charges personally and head-on, like John McCain did. Obama has done a few interviews that probably became testier than he planned, but I don’t recall him going on a conservative-oriented program (do I really have to mention the forged Bush military records being waved around by uber-lib uber-anchor Dan Rather in a clear attempt to destroy Bush’s re-election to depict the climate at CBS?) to answer tough questions.

I like the way McCain dealt with this. Ultimately, John McCain – all response ads and campaign counters aside – chose to personally and immediately confront an issue that was being used to dog him.